Inspired by my much-admired friend at Crooked House, who often posts passages about babies in literature, I thought I'd type out this bit I recently read in Flowering Judas by Katherine Anne Porter.
She had learned now that she was badly cheated in giving her children to another woman to feed; she resolved never again to be cheated in just that way. She sat nursing her child and her foster child, with a sensual warm pleasure she had not dreamed of, translating her physical relief into something holy, Godsent amends from heaven for what she had suffered in childbed.*
When people talk about how awesome breastfeeding is and how everyone should totally do it, they're usually talking about the precious precious little babies. Yeah, it's great for the babies and all, whatever. Pre-kids, I'm sure I decided to give it a try based on this argument. Post-kids, I'm really not interested in that side of things. I now see it from a mother-based point of view.
Sure, breastfeeding is good for women physically, which is a nice benefit, but more importantly, it can be very fulfilling emotionally. Which is why I don't understand the recent backlash from educated upper-middle-class women.
Once you get past the difficult first six weeks, breastfeeding is usually wonderful. It feels loving and cozy and wonderful, it forces you to slow down and enjoy your baby, it's a great opportunity to catch up on your reading, and it's an easy source of comfort for a distressed baby. Sure, pumping is not the greatest, but it's not that bad. And you really don't have to pump so that your baby can be exclusively breast-fed (the only benefit of that, for an otherwise healthy baby, is less-stinky poop), it is totally allowable to pump for your own physical relief. This can be all about you. I kind of think it should be.
As I've said before, if you're not interested in breastfeeding, I'm not going to try to talk you into it. If you're on the fence, I think you should give it a try, because it's a lot easier to stop breastfeeding than it is to start. If you try it and don't like it, stop doing it and don't feel guilty. I don't understand the guilt. I have never been able to tell a formula-fed baby (let alone kid) from a breast-fed one, have you?
*This passage is from the point of view of Sophia Jane, aka The Grandmother, a white slave-owner whose first three babies were wet-nursed by her personal slave, Nannie, with whom she has a complicated and close relationship in spite of the, ah, giant obstacle of slavery. Nannie nearly dies after the birth of her own fourth child, so Sophia Jane nurses not only her own fourth, born nearly simultaneously, but also Nannie's baby, deeply scandalizing the entire family.
